


Kindly Unspoken

by upsteadheart



Category: Chicago PD (TV)
Genre: F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-02-12
Updated: 2021-02-12
Packaged: 2021-03-12 01:07:05
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,811
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29376834
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/upsteadheart/pseuds/upsteadheart
Summary: When a night out sparks a couple memories our favourite detectives would so much rather leave in the past, they both realize maybe it’s time to own up to them and have a long overdue conversation about them.
Relationships: Jay Halstead & Hailey Upton, Jay Halstead/Hailey Upton
Kudos: 60





	Kindly Unspoken

Hailey stood with her back against the wall, pool cue at hand while she nursed her beer, watching Jay take his turn to line up his shot and take yet another attempt at banking a ball.

It made her smile. He was far from good at this, and she was absolutely smoking him. But he knew her love for the game and he’d come up with the sweetest idea to drive them across down to a local hole he and Will used to go to as teenagers in high school, so they could enjoy a nice night together.

Skill for the game aside, all that mattered was that they were here, together, having a good time and doing normal, coupley things, and it felt so natural and so right.

As Jay’s turn came to an end, he grabbed his beer off the ledge, taking another swig of it, looking over at his girlfriend and finding the seemingly lost look on her face for the fifth time tonight.

“Everything okay, Hails?” He asked her, snapping her out of it. “Huh? Oh, yeah. Sorry.” She shook it off, smiling back at him.

Jay came around her side where she stood against the wall. “Somethin’ on your mind you wanna talk about?” He offered.

But Hailey shook her head, pressing a soft kiss against his cheek and getting ready to line up her shot. “Hails…” He dropped. She wasn’t good at hiding things from him before they were together and now she just downright sucked at it.

A small sigh escaped the blonde. Much as she hated talking about feelings in general and how vulnerable it made her feel, she had come to enjoy opening up to her boyfriend and talking to him in ways she didn’t typically talk to anyone else.

Particularly while lying in bed, face to face and close enough to feel the other’s breath. She could spill her life’s deepest secrets when they were like that.

“I just… I love that we’re here, doin’ this. This date night idea was absolutely perfect and there’s nowhere else I’d rather be tonight.” Hailey assured him.

“Okay. But that doesn’t sound to me like a problem that would have you frowning if you’re supposedly having a really good time. Did I do something wrong? I know I went at that guy a little hard in interrogation this morning –”

“No. No, Jay. You’re perfect. Okay? This is perfect.” She insisted. “It’s me I’m mad at, alright?” Hailey clarified, as if that was meant to make him feel better about her being upset on their date night.

“No, it’s not alright. I don’t like seeing you upset.” Jay corrected. “What’s goin’ on, Hails?” He asked her again.

Another sigh escaped her. “When I had my… thing with Adam. He took me to a bar like this for a pool game and beers.” She finally came out with it.

Then it finally dawned on him. “Hailey… If you didn’t wanna do this tonight, you just had to say so.” Jay told her. “No, god, you don’t get it.” She cried frustratingly, turning away from him.

“No, I’m sorry, I guess I don’t.” And just like that, with the shattered tone in his voice, Hailey instantly felt a thousand times worse, because her feeling like shit made her act ice cold like this and Jay didn’t deserve that after this sweet date night idea he’d gotten.

She turned back around to face him, ditching the cue for a minute and dropping to the green leather couch seated up against the wall.

“No, I’m sorry.” Hailey shook her head. “This isn’t on you. It’s on me.” She told him. Jay left his cue with hers and sat down beside her.

“Thought we had an agreement about what’s on you is on me and vice versa. That… thing you mentioned at some point?” He finally got her to smile. His favourite sight in the world.

Jay dropped his hand to her knee, giving it a small, reassuring squeeze. “Talk to me, babe. You know you can always talk to me about anything.” He reminded her.

And she did. Both of their apartments’ walls had been privy to quite a few of those exchanges, not to mention the ones they’d had at Bartoli’s, Cork & Kerry and Molly’s.

“I hate that I went there.” Hailey spilled, shaking her head at her own stupidity. “Went where?” Jay questioned. “Slept with him.” She clarified.

Jay leaned back against the couch, dropping his hand to her back and rubbing it in slow, comforting circles like he did to help her fall asleep at night when her insomnia got particularly bad.

“I had not a single label or a single word to describe to you, myself or anyone else the way I felt about you. I just knew that it was strong, it was intense, something I wasn’t used to and couldn’t remember ever having felt before.

And I was scared of them at first. What if you would never see me that way and I ruined our thing by being upfront about those feelings?” Hailey recalled.

“So, I pushed them down. Convinced myself it was no more serious than when a little girl ‘falls in love’ with her babysitter or her favourite counsellor at day camp. Only the more I pushed them down, the stronger they got.” She went on.

Another sigh escaped her. “Then came the night you were shot. Heard the shots, we came running around the corner… and you were just lying there. So still.” Her eyes filled with tears.

That night had become somewhat of a taboo topic between them. A memory neither one of them particularly cared to bring up. And as such, they’d never really talked about the ways it had affected either partner.

“I thought you were dead.” Two tears ran down her cheeks. “Thought I lost you and I’d… never see you again.” Another pair followed suit.

Jay wrapped her in his arms and held her while still remaining quiet and letting Hailey empty herself out. “When I ripped open your shirt to look for the bullet, and found it in your vest. It was like a miracle sent from the heavens.

I was on the most insane adrenaline high I’d ever felt in my life. Everything shaking, everything uneasy. And the second I walked away from you in that ambo I broke down.

Adam’s right there beside me, asks me if I’m okay. Of course, my famous line, I tell him ‘I’m fine,’ then I see the image of you lying there again, stuck to the front of my brain and I just lost it.

He suggested we get out of there and get a beer, and after the day I’d had it sounded great. But then, one beer becomes two, two becomes three… Next thing I know, I ask him back to my place, we’re in the car on the way over.

Rest of the night’s kind of a blur. Then I wake up to my phone ringing, see your caller ID on the screen and just… ‘what the fuck did I do’ is the only thing screaming inside my head.

When he woke up it was just so… awkward and… God, I was so stupid.” Hailey cursed herself. “And then someway, somehow, I thought, ‘hey, let’s keep it goin’, what’s the worst thing that’s gonna happen?’

Oh, right! I’m in love with another man and just slept with his best friend, because I’m an overly-emotional idiot.” She spat at herself, before falling back against the couch.

Then she turned her head to find her partner grinning. “Wh – oh my god…” Hailey dropped, her hand coming up over her mouth, her eyes falling closed.

“You didn’t – hear that last line, right? Cuz, I mean, it is pretty loud in here, right? And then –” Before another word came out of her, she was shut up by Jay’s lips pressed against hers.

He chuckled against her mouth, pulling his head back once she was silent and running his hand through her long blonde curls.

“You know how happy it makes me that you just said that so naturally?” Jay said to her, instantly making her stop pretending.

“Course I said it naturally, Jay. It’s all I’ve been thinkin’ about for the last… two years?” She told him. “Every time I say I’m fine, push you away… the last thing I want is for you to leave me alone.

And I never have to say it or ask for it. Cuz you just do every time. And I feel so safe and cared about. There’s nowhere else on earth I wanna be when I’m with you.” Hailey professed.

“Just makes me feel all that stupider when I think about what I did to pretend I wasn’t feeling all those things.” She expressed.

Jay pulled a strand of hair from her face and tucked it behind her ear. “Hails, I wrote the book of stupidity. The woman I thought I was gonna spend the rest of my life with walked out of my life without a word. I fell off the edge after that and did some dumb shit to convince myself I wasn’t hurting.

Including sleeping with Camilla while I was undercover, if you really wanna talk using sex as emotional relief.” Jay reminded her, making the biggest eye roll fall from his girlfriend at the memory of that whole shit-show.

“Point is, we both made some dumb mistakes before realizing where we belonged and who we belonged with. If I had to go through all that because of some sorta godly plan to finally end up with you; I’d go through it a million more times to get here.” Jay told her, making tears jerk at her eyes.

How was this perfect man hers? How on earth did she grow up knowing nothing but hell, make mistake after mistake as a rookie and put her life at risk constantly while she was undercover, all to end up in a healthy, happy, stable relationship with Jay Halstead?

“Ya really mean that?” Hailey asked him softly. “Course I do.” He smiled at her.

“Whataya say we ditch this place and drive over to Addison to get Bartoli’s deepest deep-dish to go and take it back to my place?” A true smile finally broke across his girlfriend’s stunning features at his suggestion.

Hailey nodded her head, with a grin resembling a little girl’s on Christmas morning. “Alright then, let’s go.” Jay led, putting away their cues and rearranging the balls in the center, before grabbing his jacket.

\--

“For the record, Hails,” Jay said to her, as they climbed into the truck, making her turn her head to look at him, “I’m in love with you too.” He beamed, making his girl light up, before leaning in to kiss her.

**Author's Note:**

> Thanks for reading!


End file.
